Whose Bed Is It Anyway? (8 page)

Heat washed over her. Inappropriate, devastating heat.

‘Then with that picture. The rescue work...' He tailed off.

‘You became a hero,' she finished, licking her lips to ease their dryness. ‘Even more wanted.'

He nodded reluctantly, slowly. ‘And then that woman—'

‘Sold her story and the hot lover legend was born.'

He put his head in his hands and groaned.

Hard as she tried Caitlin couldn't quite feel sorry for him. Hard as she tried she couldn't stop her own arousal either.
Seven
times?

‘Are you afraid you can't live up to it?' she provoked, forcing herself to laugh and keep it light. ‘Don't worry, everyone knows all the stuff in the papers is made up. We all know the “seven times in one night” was a massive exaggeration.'

He glanced up, his expression smouldering. ‘I just don't want any more stories in the papers.'

‘So you don't trust anyone.' She got it now.

‘Not one-night stands.'

‘And you're not in town long enough to start a relationship.' She tried to slow her zinging pulse. He must be lonely. Must be hungry for it. ‘Isn't there anyone in your team?' she asked. ‘In the paramedic, disaster community?'

‘No.' He shook his head, the heat in his eyes igniting. ‘I really don't need you to be match-maker for me.'

‘I'm not. I'm just analysing.' She flicked her tongue over her desert dry lips again. ‘No wonder you couldn't resist kissing me. How long has it been?' She glanced at the date of the article again. ‘Ten months?'

For a vital, virile man like him that must feel like for ever.

He stepped nearer as his voice came softer. ‘That wasn't why I kissed you.'

‘No?' She couldn't move. ‘Why did you?'

‘I wanted to. I want you.'

Heat burst in a fireball in her belly. ‘You stopped,' she accused.

‘Because it was the right thing to do at the time.'

‘And you always do the right thing.' She remembered from earlier. ‘Or you try to. Why do you try so hard?'

He didn't answer. Instead, with his gaze firmly locked on hers, he tugged the iPad from her fingers. ‘What's good for the gander...' He trailed off.

‘Don't,' she whispered. All sensual heat evaporated, leaving her cold, empty. Afraid.

‘You might have gone off the rails when you were a teen soap star, but that was
years
ago,' he pointed out bluntly. ‘That's not why you're here now. There's something else, right? Something more.'

She always wants Moore.

‘Please don't,' she asked again.

‘It's that bad?'

‘Worse.'

‘Like I can't look now,' he said wryly, tapping her name into the search engine.

Caitlin closed her eyes and silence commanded the room.

James looked at the massive number of hits. Most of them were UK based websites. There was a heap of images from years ago. And then some more recent. Much more recent. An online version of a UK tabloid had a number of recent articles. None of the headlines were good—
Could she be any Moore crazy?
;
She always wants Moore
;
Stop stalking me, I can't take any Moore!

He clicked on the last. Skimmed the article then scrolled down to the comments. Unadulterated vitriol. And there'd be far worse on those unmoderated sites.

‘They always like to find the ugliest pictures they can.' She spoke in a very small voice.

True. The accompanying picture didn't do her justice. How the hell they'd snapped her like that he didn't know. She was beautiful in real life. Elfin, ethereal—seemingly incapable of looking or acting the outright bitch this article claimed she was.

She'd gotten involved with an actor. Dominic. They'd dated for the best part of a year—she'd been studying. He'd been growing in popularity. Publicity.

He'd ended it. She'd taken it badly. Turned stalker—especially when Dominic began a new relationship right away with another woman. An actress.

According to this, Caitlin had told him she was pregnant. Tried to emotionally blackmail him back to her. Then, when things didn't go the way she wanted, when he didn't return to her, she'd aborted the baby. And in the court of public opinion, she'd been crucified.

James looked at her, needing to read her expression. To ask for her truth. What he saw pulled his chest tight.

She'd had a shiny inner glow when she'd first woken this morning, a teasing light and a definite bite. Now she'd paled. The spark in her eyes, her speech, her spirit—snuffed. He wanted it back. It was what he liked most about her.

‘I hadn't been in the papers for years,' she said. ‘And now it's not just the newspapers, is it? It's the Internet and Twitter and all those blogs with anonymous people who love to spout hate. They pulled up everything from the past. It's so much worse than it ever was. I thought I could handle it. I could back then. But now I can't. Now I...' Her voice trailed off.

‘Is it true?' he asked quietly.

‘Is what true?' she answered, some spirit returning. ‘All of it? Part of it?' She lifted her shoulders. ‘What does it matter what I answer?' She shook her head. ‘Will you be able to believe me? Really believe me?'

‘I have no reason not to.'

She tensed. ‘Yet the first night we met you were thinking all kinds of charming things about me.'

‘I was tired and...really tired. I wasn't in the best headspace. It wasn't
you
making me think that way, it was me.'

‘People naturally think the worst. People naturally doubt.'

He shook his head. ‘In my job I have to trust people instantly. I have to rely on strangers in the craziest of circumstances. And most of the time, they pull through for me. Actions. It's always in their actions.'

‘So what do you think my actions say about me?'

He gazed at her, at the guarded look in her eyes, and the hope she couldn't quite hide. ‘Your actions tell me that you've been really hurt. You've run away—come to hide and recover in private. But you're also yearning to start again—so you have determination. You have pride in your work. You want to do well. You're willing to put up with a difficult situation in order to be here—so you were very desperate to escape. Perhaps you're also desperate to succeed.'

She blinked suddenly. Her gaze dropping from his as her lashes fluttered a few times.

‘Whether every word in this article is true?' He shook his head. ‘I don't think it would be.'

She looked at him again, her pale blue eyes shining, beseeching. He suddenly felt how strongly she wanted to be believed. Yet she was filled with fear. And sadness. A fiery basic instinct roared within him—he wanted to protect, defend. Reassure.

‘I've never been pregnant,' she whispered. ‘Ever.'

His chest constricted. Ached. So did his throat. He nodded. ‘Then why have they run with this? How did this even get printed?'

‘Publicity, I guess. It made for a good storm. He came out as the poor, wronged guy.' She shook her head, casting away the wretched expression, her defensive quip returning. ‘The crowd loves a villain. Everybody loves to have somebody to hate.'

James stared hard at her, trying to see the true source of her very real distress. ‘Did he break your heart?'

‘Only by not speaking out to say this wasn't true. He knows it's not true. He betrayed me by staying silent.'

No one had stood up for her. Not her sister. Not her father. She'd not even stood up for herself. She'd run away. Could he really blame her for that?

He glanced back down at the iPad and flicked back to the search results. He clicked on a couple more. One catalogued her previous ‘crimes'.

‘Are they all untrue?' He read some of the accusations. ‘Did you get so drunk at your sixteenth birthday party you vomited on the production assistant? Did you insist on having first pick of all the outfits you and your castmates were offered? Did you have an affair with the man who played your teacher in the show...?'

‘Actually,' she interrupted with a guilty whisper, ‘they're all true.'

He laughed a little. ‘Oh, Caitlin.'

‘Well, in fairness, the outfits thing was only because I was really getting into the costumes. I wanted to put the look together. But I didn't go about it the right way. I was young. Stupid. I admit to the mistakes I made. But you'll note it was
me
, the sixteen-year-old who seduced the older guy—according to those stories. Thank heavens he wasn't married. I'd have been slaughtered.'

‘In reality he seduced you?'

‘Honestly?' She thought about it. ‘I think I was easy pickings. I think he knew which buttons to push.' She looked him in the eyes. ‘The emotional ones, I mean.'

‘Where was your father?'

A flash of sheer surprise flitted across her face. And then she laughed. ‘Exactly.' She shrugged. ‘Enter father figure, stage left.' She sobered, the sad expression returning. ‘The worst thing was the writers caught a whiff of the rumours and then put it in the show. I was the schoolgirl with the crush on the teacher.'

Yeah, it really wasn't funny. ‘Your father didn't refuse that storyline?'

Her mouth clamped for a moment. ‘My father thinks there's no such thing as bad publicity. He was always more manager than parent. I don't need a manager any more.'

So that left her without a parent? He didn't know what he could say to make it any better for her. ‘That sucks.'

She inclined her head and looked him straight in the eyes. ‘You really believe me?'

Carefully he watched her expression—reading all that doubt there. ‘Why wouldn't I?'

‘Reputation is a dangerous thing.' She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. ‘Mud sticks and all that.'

‘No,' he murmured. ‘Why really? Didn't you ever challenge them? Didn't you deny this crap this Dominic-guy spread?'

‘There was no point. People will always think smoke means fire.'

‘No,' he challenged her. ‘Sometimes it's just smoke. Sometimes it's just there for someone to hide in. Like a stage set.'

She shook her head and the haunted look returned. She glanced down, running over the long list of offences detailed on the Internet. ‘The underage clubbing thing is true, as is the underage drinking. But I never did drugs. Nor have I ever self-harmed.'

She hit the back arrow on the navigation bar, and scrolled back a few pages until that mortifying article about him featured.

‘Look at it, the grand total of two stories on you are fabulous,' she said drily. ‘While the thousands on me are awful. Being labelled a sex stud isn't anywhere near as bad as being labelled a narcissistic, deranged stalker.'

She paused as the picture of him carrying the child out from the landslide popped up. She was right, but he still hated that image—what it had brought for him. A moniker he didn't deserve. A supposedly ‘heroic' status. Because in reality he couldn't be less of a hero. He'd destroyed a family, not saved one. Yeah, the
real
story of his life, the most relevant thing about him, had never been reported in any newspaper.

Caitlin looked at the way James was sullenly glaring at himself in that picture. He was cradling that poor kid so carefully, yet he'd had the look of a fighter on his face—sheer determination as he ran. His T-shirt had been spattered with his own blood, pouring from the nasty-looking gash on the side of his head.

‘Did it hurt?'
Ugh
. She clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘I'm sorry. You must get asked that all the time.'

‘It looked worse than it was.' He looked up at her, his moody reverie broken, amusement stealing back into his eyes. ‘Some women are fascinated with the scar,' he said softly. ‘They always want to kiss it. Like they could make it better with their life-giving lips or something.'

‘And do those kisses make it better?'

He chuckled and shook his head. ‘Truth? I lost most of the nerve endings around the wound. I can't even feel it if someone kisses it. It's sure as hell not sexy.'

‘Roger that,' she said crisply. ‘No scar kissing, then.'

Their eyes met. For a moment there was thick, expectant silence.

He lifted his finger and ran it down his scar. ‘Women think this symbolises something that isn't real. I'm no hero.'

‘You are,' she muttered. ‘You're good.'

‘Why do you think that?' That bleak, almost angry look returned. ‘From what you've read?'

‘From your
actions,
' she corrected. ‘You're the guy who pulled back from having anything you'd like from me this morning.' She glared at him. ‘Is it so
bad
to want me?'

He flinched. ‘I was trying to do the right thing by you.'

‘Who's to say I wanted the “right” thing?' She rolled her eyes. ‘Don't you get it? I'm the bad girl who always wants to do the wrong thing.'

He hesitated. ‘I wouldn't have said it was wrong. But it seemed to me you're a bit bruised and I didn't want to make things more difficult for you. Now I know for certain you are.'

‘You cooled off to protect me?' she flashed. ‘I can look after myself.'

‘I'm sure you can,' he said peaceably.

That didn't soothe her irritation. ‘And isn't the fact I've had a tough time all the more reason to do something decadent?'

His eyes sparked. ‘Decadent?'

It would be
so
decadent. The guy was like that luscious, rich chocolate he'd fed her. The finest of ingredients, the smoothest texture, divine taste. Fit, strong...
seven
times?

He laughed softly as he looked at her. ‘What are you thinking?'